Research into the history of Football in Falkirk district : mainly concentrating on the the period up to 1945 I like to dig through the newspapers from the days of yore to find little vignettes that were rarely included in the published histories.
From the ugly side to the downright obscure, just don't expect me to write about anything too obvious ....

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Sydney & Leonard Puddefoot

It is well recorded that Sydney Puddefoot signed for Falkirk in the 1920s after having wowed the fans when he was stationed in Scotland during the Great War. The Falkirk fans & the board put all other considerations aside to raise the £5,500 price tag which West Ham had put on him largely to deter Falkirk, it did not deter Falkirk FC.

What is less well known is that during Syd's time at Falkirk his little brother also turned up: Leonard Puddefoot. Unlike Sydney I can find very little written about Len, either as a footballer or otherwise.

Falkirk Team v Hibernian Wed 16th Aug 1922

I do not know why he played for the club, other than this one match I have never found any record of him playing football at any level whatsoever; Perhaps Syd convinced the board to give his brother a trial, perhaps it was part of Syd's contract. All I know is that Len is missing from the usual sources: he is not in John Listser's CD-Rom of Scottish Players' Registration; nor in Michael Joyce's Football League Players' Records 1888-1939. Which would suggest that his main football was with juvenile and non-league football in and around London.

Whatever the case, I found the brothers in the 1911 census, I looked because even though Puddefoot is a very rare name, I had to look because I had very little to go on to be sure that this was another case of a pair of brothers playing for Falkirk FC.

click to see a larger version.

Note -Oops, looking about in the same paper, I found a reason why Len might have been about, though not why he played a league match. I seems he played more than once for Falkirk FC